In 2009 they were conspicuous by their absence. The following year they were still keeping their heads down. But at this year’s just concluded annual World Economic Forum meeting held in Davos, Switzerland, it was a different story.

Two years after the eruption of the global financial crisis, having been bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, their bonuses and salary packages restored, and having taken the measure of governments around the world, the bankers were not only back in force, they were laying down the law.

In a series of speeches at open sessions and in closed-door discussions, leading bank chiefs made clear they would not tolerate restrictions on their activities and that, notwithstanding the fact that their actions had triggered the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, they would continue exactly as before.

The tone was set early in the five-day meeting by Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn. Criticising the imposition of new rules on traditional institutions, Cohn warned that the “unregulated sector will grow at an exponential rate”.

“What I most worry about is that in the next cycle, as the regulatory pendulum swings, we are going to have to use taxpayer money to bail out unregulated businesses that, unlike the banks in the last crisis, may not be able to repay them,” Cohn said.

But the so-called “unregulated sector”—comprising organisations such as hedge funds and special purpose vehicles—and the banks are not separate organisations. They are two sides of the same financial system. The “unregulated” organisations could not function for a day without the massive supply of credit from the banks.

Viewed in this context, Cohn’s “warning” was a rather thinly-veiled blackmail threat: give us what we demand or we will find another way to do what we want and set off another financial crisis.

The chief executive of Standard Chartered, Peter Sands, took a different tack, insisting that regulations could have no real impact. “The current regulatory debate,” he declared, “is a bit like discussing having better seat belts on planes. It’s hard to argue against, but when the plane crashes, it’s all a bit marginal.”

Not that Cohn and Sands and their fellow banking chiefs needed to worry about the impact of regulation. The meagre regulations put in place since 2008 have been almost completely diluted.

International regulations are embodied in the Basel III accords that have been set up over the past 18 months. However, as Liam Halligan, a columnist for the British Telegraph, noted, referring to the Basel rules: “[T]he actual document is so full of fudges and escape hatches that it amounts to very little. The only concrete policy—requiring banks to hold more capital against potential losses—doesn’t kick in until 2018. Other measures designed to prevent future crises … have been postponed, allowing banks to carry on pretty much as before. In truth, the Basel accord, amid dire warnings of lower lending and job losses, has been eviscerated by the all-powerful banking lobby.”

According to Halligan, backroom meetings at the Davos summit ensured that new Basel rules requiring regulators to impose higher capital requirements on “systemically important financial institutions” were heavily diluted and even “relatively minor regulatory changes that have been put in place since sub-prime are being gradually stripped away”.

Having begun with an attack on regulation, the banking executives stayed on the front foot throughout the summit, with executives from JP Morgan, Barclays, Credit Suisse and others calling a meeting of finance ministers and officials to demand that “bank bashing” cease. To reinforce the point, they insisted that “over-indebtedness of countries,” not just of banks, was responsible for the crisis.

The aggressive character of the bankers’ campaign came as something of a shock for the reform-minded critic Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

Interviewed from Davos, Johnson said: “I knew it was a parallel universe, and I wanted to observe it, but I’m just shocked by the temerity of these bankers. Not only are they showing no remorse, they’re saying, ‘Oh, all that regulation you’ve infused or tried slightly to push on us is irrelevant or bad or dangerous and damaging and you should let us have our bucks now.’ And the rest of the Davos elite seems to be buying into this. It’s quite extraordinary. And rather disturbing.”...MORE...LINK

From: The Bernanke RiotsEgypt Is Just the Beginning(Alternative Right) -- by Richard Spencer --

Viewing scenes of mass riots, looting, blood in the streets, the torching of government buildings, and the Egyptian army opening fire on citizens, most mainstream commentators have discussed the situation in Cairo in the only way they know how—it’s all about “democracy.”

Summed up briefly, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is a “brutal dictator” and is finally getting his comeuppance. The solution is for Egypt to hold elections… or rather, hold elections that the Muslim Brotherhood wouldn’t win, for “democracy” means voting in pro-Israel, pro-Washington, and pro-market representatives. At any rate, once Egyptian Twitter is turned back on, liberal utopia will ensue.

More nuanced commentators have noted Washington’s incoherent and frivolous policy of trying to unleash democracy in the Middle East—and finaning such forces—while at the same time giving massive foreign-aid outlays (1.5 billion) to Mubarak’s Egypt in the hope of stability. (It seems that even the most devout neocon, neo-liberal, and globalist recognizes that the true voice of the demos in the Middle East is something close to Islamism.)

Very few have asked the all-important question of “Why now?”—that is, what caused, or at least sparked, this violent uprising, as well as similar affairs in Tunisia, Algeria, and Yemen? The Arab Republic of Egypt had been chugging right along under Mubarak’s dictatorship for some 30 years; indeed, Egypt experienced steady GDP growth of late, putting the lie to the idea that democracy is correlated with economic progress. So again, why now? What has changed? Did Egyptians simply wake up last Thursday morning and collectively decide that they’ve had enough and now want to vote?

In the end, the real cause of the unrest is not autocracy but a mild-mannered, bearded Jewish professor operating in America’s capital—Ben Bernanke.

As Jim Rickards and Tyler Durden have noted, the Egyptian unrest has come at a time of spiking world commodity prices—which means high food prices, which means the poor people are getting hungry and angry.

And commodities aren’t going up due to increasing demand and decreasing supply so much as money printing. The adage that inflation comes about when too many dollars are chasing too few goods holds for world prices of grains, cereals, oil, metals, and the rest.

All central banks are, in some way, responsible for this week’s debacle, as over the past three years, they’ve all been lowering interest rates and seeking to expand their monetary bases. But the real blame should be laid at the feet of the leader of the pack, Bernanke. For unlike the other central bankers, Bernanke has the ability to export his inflation...MORE...LINK

...The geopolitical maneuverings of the US military-industrial complex don’t take away from the fact that the revolt in Egypt is driven by genuine grievances relating to spiraling food prices, high unemployment, policy brutality and the grass-roots drive to unseat a 30 year dictatorship.

However, if they allow globalist carpetbagger Mohammed ElBaradei to seize power, demonstrators are ensuring that their actions are in vain and ultimately worthless.

“You are the owners of this revolution. You are the future,” ElBaradei declared. “Our essential demand is the departure of the regime and the beginning of a new Egypt in which each Egyptian lives in virtue, freedom and dignity.”

Egyptians may be the owners of the revolution, but the owners of ElBaradei himself are busy hijacking that revolution by installing a puppet that will be just as compliant with Egypt continuing as a globalist client state as Mubarak has been for the past 30 years. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Won’t get fooled again?

ElBaradei serves on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, who on Friday issued a press release protesting the decision on behalf of Egyptian authorities to place ElBaradei under house arrest.

International Crisis Group is a shadowy NGO (non-governmental organization) that enjoys an annual budget of over $15 million and is bankrolled by the likes of Carnegie, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Soros himself serves as a member of the organization’s Executive Committee.

In other words, this is a major geopolitical steering group for the global elite.

The fact that their man ElBaradei is being primed to head up the post-Mubarak government should set alarm bells ringing in the ears of every demonstrator who is protesting in the name of trying to wrestle Egypt away from the clutches of new world order control.

Indeed, even Mubarak himself is now seemingly catching on to the understanding that his usefulness to the global power elite has run its course, remarking during a national address Saturday that the protests were “part of a bigger plot to shake the stability and destroy the legitimacy” of the political system.

ElBaradei is the central figure in a long term plot to subvert and steer the outcome of a revolution that the global elite knew was coming three years ahead of time. Although his installation as puppet president may see political freedoms temporarily restored as a symbolic gesture, Egypt’s destiny will still be firmly under the control of the same parties that have pulled Mubarak’s strings for the past three decades...MORE...LINK

ElBaradei (top) sits on governing board of International Crisis Group, a left-liberal-capitalist NGO financially backed by the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and globalist megalomaniac George Soros

Even if Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak succeeds in clinging to power, that is not going to change the writing on Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia that the whole world has been reading: The days of the Middle Eastern autocrats, allied with the U.S. and open to some sort of co-existence with Israel — in fact, of the entire American hegemonic project in the Middle East — may be numbered.

But whether it comes to promoting its values or to securing strategic interests, U.S. clout in the Middle East has been shrinking now to its lowest point since the end of the Cold War when the U.S. had emerged as the only global player in the region: The “peace process” is all but dead. The radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr’s movement has joined an Iran-oriented Iraqi government. The new Lebanese Prime Minister was selected by Hizbollah. Turkey is pursuing a foreign policy independent of Washington and Iran is continuing to flex its muscle in the Levant and the Persian Gulf.

So it was not surprising that the only mention of the Middle East in Obama’s State of the Union Address was a brief reference to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq — to American retreat from the region.

The political crisis in Egypt – and the no-win policy choices available now to Washington — demonstrates the dramatic erosion in U.S. influence there. The Mubaraks of the Middle East may still be able to count on the support of their militaries and Mukhabarts (secret services). But having lost their legitimacy as national leaders they are threatened by the eruption of a political volcano — masses of young angry people. Their lowest common political denominator that brings them together is the hostility towards the U.S. which had helped keep their reviled rulers in power for so many years, and to Israel, which is perceived to be America’s partner in crime and the oppressor of their brothers and sisters in Palestine...MORE...LINK-------------------------

Chris Moore comments:

This goes right along with the concept that the post WWII generation (b.1935 – 55) is the “The Worst Generation.” Look at how much their elites were handed on a silver platter coming out of the Cold War — mostly handed to them due to sacrifices of the WWII generation, including the Cold War victory. And look how quickly they’ve utterly squandered it.

On the Left, the Clintons and their statist-liberal/neoliberal ilk. On the Right, ideological neocons like Cheney, McCain, Lieberman, GW Bush. Not coincidentally, the lot of them are “compassionate” and “progressive” Israel firsters.

What a curse the entirety of them have brought down upon America. It’s simply amazing how quickly they’ve been able to plunder and squander a sole superpower, and sabatoge the prospects for younger Americans for God knows how long.

Speaking today in a series of television interviews, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated that the Obama Administration does not seek and would not support the ouster of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Rather, she insisted that the US wanted Mubarak to listen to those opposition figures who have “legitimate grievances” and move towards a “managed change” and an “orderly transition” toward a somewhat more democratic society.

Clinton even disavowed previous suggestions that the US might revoke its military aid to Egypt, what with the Mubarak regime using its security forces chiefly to kill dissidents, insisting that the US didn’t want to be seen as “backing away” from their long-time ally...MORE...LINK-------------------------Family portrait: Hillary, her new Jewish son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky, daughter Chelsea, and Bill Clinton at Chelsea's wedding last summer. Only missing party is Bill's Jewish mistress, Monica Lewinsky

(AntiWar.com) -- by Justin Raimondo --A long-oppressed people finally rises up and braves tanks, secret police thugs, and the inertia of routine humiliation to say: “Enough”! Who could fail to sympathize? Well, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Michigan), for one:

“The Egyptian demonstrations are not the equivalent of Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution. The Egyptian demonstrations are the reprise of Iran’s 1979 radical revolution. Thus, America must stand with her ally Egypt to preserve an imperfect government capable of reform; and prevent a tyrannical government capable of harm.”

Why compare Egypt to Iran at all? Well, you know, those people over there in the Middle East are all alike: no need to differentiate. No need to cite any facts, which McCotter doesn’t. Those clean-shaven Egyptian kids in the hoodies and black leather jackets we’re seeing on our television screens may not look like Iranian mullahs, but we all know those icky brown people over there are all the same – don’t we?...

The reality is that McCotter could care less about freedom in Egypt: long a knee-jerk supporter of Israel, he leaps when AIPAC says jump, and is a favorite of fanatic anti-Arab bigot Debbie “Bad Hair” Schlussel. He babbles on about the alleged “control” of the anti-Mubarak movement by the Muslim Brotherhood – the line being put out there by the Israel lobby – but has zero evidence to back up his assertions. In order for this to be true, it would have to mean that virtually the entire population of Egypt, sans the security forces and the ruling party, are Muslim Brotherhood supporters, and yet we have seen nothing of the kind manifested in the massive demonstrations launched by grassroots activists and ordinary Egyptians.

McCotter isn’t some fringe nut job, a bald male version of Michelle Bachmann – he’s the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee and a GOP bigwig. These are the types of people who inhabit the upper reaches of the Republican party – clueless dogmatists who only care about how much campaign money they can get from the money-bags at AIPAC. (McCotter bagged $10,550 in the past two years.)...

Israel, Israel, Israel – it’s all about Israel, even when it isn’t. That’s the explanation for the coolness of the major pro-Israel organizations to Egypt’s valiant democratic upsurge. As Alan Elsner, an analyst with the “Israel Project,” put it:

“We understand very well that this is a regime that has been there for 30 years and is an authoritarian government. It hasn’t allowed free and fair elections – we understand that. We also understand that this is a government that made peace with Israel in 1979 and Mubarak’s predecessor paid for that peace with his life.”

“We understand” – and we don’t care. All we care about is that shitty little country in the Middle East which is fast turning into a racist theocracy and thrives on the $3 billion of taxpayer dollars we shovel down its greedy maw every year. We don’t care about democracy, liberty, the right of human beings to live and breathe – all we care about is our narrow little tribal ambitions. Asked why the Project supported the Iranian “Green” upsurge, and not the Egyptian version, Elsner replied: “”There is a huge difference between the governments of Iran and of Egypt. The government of Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel and has observed it.” So unacquainted with morality and any concept of basic human decency are the Elsners of this world that I doubt they realize how bad this sounds.

Elsner’s colleagues in the Lobby have a similar case of tunnel vision: Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, complained that “Getting rid of Mubarak will create such disruption and potentially dangerous change.” Dangerous – for whom? Why, for Israel, of course.

The worst dictatorships could prosper, thousands could be tortured and killed – but as long as Israel is served by the course of events, all’s right with the world. That’s what people like McCotter, Elsner, and Hoenlein fervently believe. And the government of Israel agrees with them. In a story headlined “Israel Has Faith Mubarak Will Prevail,” top Israeli officials are cited:

“With a deep investment in the status quo, Israel is watching what a senior official calls ‘an earthquake in the Middle East’ with growing concern. The official says the Jewish state has faith in the security apparatus of its most formidable Arab neighbor, Egypt, to suppress the street demonstrations that threaten the dictatorial rule of President Hosni Mubarak. The harder question is what comes next.

“‘We believe that Egypt is going to overcome the current wave of demonstrations, but we have to look to the future,’ says the minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel enjoys diplomatic relations and security cooperation with both Egypt and Jordan, the only neighboring states that have signed treaties with the Jewish state. But while it may be more efficient to deal with a strongman in Cairo – Mubarak has ruled for 30 years – and a king in Amman, democracies make better neighbors, ‘because democracies do not initiate wars,’ he says. ‘Having said that, I’m not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process.’”

Has such unmitigated arrogance ever been seen or recorded?

In a normal world, such chutzpah would be widely condemned, and repudiated: instead, in our Bizarro World, it is kowtowed to and appeased. This appeasement is what stands between the Obama administration and the wholesale rejection of the Mubarak regime. Netanyahu says he’s been on the phone with President Obama, and we don’t have to strain to imagine the conversation. It’s sickening to consider how damaging US support to Mubarak has been for American interests in the Middle East and around the world, but American interests don’t matter to the Americans – as long as Israel is appeased.

Unlike many, this commentator isn’t urging the Obama administration to endorse the demonstrations, or call for Mubarak’s ouster: this isn’t about America, after all, but about Egypt and its long-suffering people. Instead of rhetoric about “democracy,” what the Egyptian people need above all is action, and this means an immediate cut off of all aid to the Mubarak regime. How many times have we seen the demonstrators hold up tear gas canisters being shot at them with “Made in U.S.A.” stamped all over them? This hurts us, it hurts our national interests, but our rulers are oblivious. As Mubarak’s paid murderers cut down Egyptians in the streets, the Americans are worrying about Israel and the Suez canal. If post-Mubarak Egyptians have an ounce of self-esteem, they’ll ban American ships from the canal for all eternity.

If we were living in a rational America, instead of Bizarro America, the US government would have cut off all aid to Egypt days ago – heck, years ago. Unfortunately, we live in a country where the national interests of the American people are routinely ignored in favor of a nation that has spied on us, sold our secrets to our worst enemies, and ruthlessly pursued a policy of expansion – using our tax dollars to do it...MORE...LINK

Sunday, January 30, 2011

WASHINGTON — As unprecedented protests have led to national chaos in Egypt, the Egyptian army has taken no decisive action to end the conflict, leaving experts to wonder which of four possibilities are governing the army's actions.

Does the military sympathize with the protesters or is it just waiting for the right moment to intervene? Is it divided internally about the proper response or does it see itself not as the protector of President Hosni Mubarak's regime but of the Egyptian state?

"There doesn't seem to be a signal clear line that the military is taking," said Joel Beinin, a professor of Middle East history at Stanford University. "They haven't been ordered to do anything one way or the other. We are still in a freeze moment. Everyone understands the Mubarak regime has lost credibility. My guess is the army is deciding what it will do next."

As protests continued on Sunday, the army remained the bulwark of state legitimacy even as it co-existed peacefully with protesters who spray-painted anti-Mubarak slogans on tanks and hoisted army officers on their shoulders.

The Egyptian air force sent F-16 fighter jets over the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square, but some soldiers appeared to have joined the protests. Throughout Cairo, men armed with kitchen knives and sticks captured looters, then handed them to the army, confident the military would take care of the problem. The mere sight of soldiers on the streets elicited applause.

The army's position reflects the military's long status as the face of Egyptian nationalism. The army's seeming ambivalence toward the protests also may be an indication that its leaders understand that keeping its revered status is more important than preserving the Mubarak government...MORE...LINK

All of a sudden, middle-aged American men in suits who couldn't find their way, unaided, from Cairo's Ramses Station down Talaat Harb to Midan Tahrir, are posing as experts, appearing on U.S. television to insinuate that the Muslim Brotherhood is violent and extremist.

Fortunately, the Brothers have an English-language website. Scroll down it to the lower left and you will see the feature: "MB vs. Qaeda." This segment is one more sign of the organization's decades-long commitment to nonviolence, even though over the years the Mubarak regime has arrested and tortured thousands of its members.

One current post notes happily, "Al-Qaeda losing supporters in jihadi groups across the Arab world." There's also an open lettter that starts off, "Dear 'Muslim' Terrorist." "Sister Jannah" pointedly asks jihadists who planned attacks on civilians, "But did you even bother to ask a single real scholar of Islam? Like the hundreds and thousands of mainstream Islamic scholars out there. -- Guess what they say -- That killing innocent people is Haram."

Ignorance about the Brotherhood's true views and recent history is one more failing by the Western mainstream media. If thousands of members of secular, liberal organizations in Egypt had been regularly arrested in recent years, the names of their leaders would be household words...LINK

Goldman Sachs collected $2.9 billion from the American International Group as payout on a speculative trade it placed for the benefit of its own account, receiving the bulk of those funds after AIG received an enormous taxpayer rescue, according to the final report of an investigative panel appointed by Congress.

The fact that a significant slice of the proceeds secured by Goldman through the AIG bailout landed in its own account--as opposed to those of its clients or business partners-- has not been previously disclosed. These details about the workings of the controversial AIG bailout, which eventually swelled to $182 billion, are among the more eye-catching revelations in the report to be released Thursday by the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

The details underscore the degree to which Goldman--the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history--benefited directly from the massive emergency bailout of the nation's financial system, a deal crafted on the watch of then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who had previously headed the bank.

"If these allegations are correct, it appears to have been a direct transfer of wealth from the Treasury to Goldman's shareholders," said Joshua Rosner, a bond analyst and managing director at independent research consultancy Graham Fisher & Co., after he was read the relevant section of the report. "The AIG counterparty bailout, which was spun as necessary to protect the public, seems to have protected the institution at the expense of the public."

Goldman and AIG both declined to comment...MORE...LINK-------------------------I'm doing 'God's work,' Goldman Sachs' CEO Lloyd Blankfein once famously quipped. Is God really in the business of thieving from the poor to line the pockets of the rich?

I'm as thrilled as anyone by what I see in the Cairo streets, but when I turn on American television I see only grim faces. Rob't Gibbs looked frightened during his delayed press briefing yesterday afternoon, he didn't know what to say. Obama's comments last night were equivocal and opaque: I'm with Mubarak, for now. This is his 9/11-- the day Arabs blindsided a president.

I thought this is what he wanted for the Arab world: democracy! But the market dropped, and the cable shows are filled with mistrust of the Arab street. Our talking heads can't stop talking about the Islamists. Chris Matthews cried out against the Muslim Brotherhood and shouted, Who is our guy here?-- as if the U.S. can play a hand on the streets. While his guest Marc Ginsberg, a former ambassador to Morocco whose work seems to be dedicated to finding the few good Arabs out there, said that forces outside Egypt are funding the revolt-- a grotesque statement, given the homegrown flavor of everything we have seen in the streets; and when Matthews pressed him, Ginsberg said, Hamas... Iran.

Matthews's other interpreter was Howard Fineman. Why aren't there more Arab-Americans on US television? I give PBS credit for gathering Mary-Jane Deeb and Samer Shehata (along with the inevitable Steven Cook of CFR) to speak of the real political demands of the protesters (and not galloping Islamism!)-- but when CNN aired Mona Eltahawy saying that the protesters are not violent, the moderator stomped on her and said, what about those burning vehicles?

As if eastern Europe changed without similar destruction.

So racism against Arabs is shutting down the American mind once again...MORE...LINK-------------------------

Omar Suleiman, the chief of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate who was appointed vice president by besieged President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday, is a powerful figure who has kept Islamists in check at home while managing contacts at the highest level with Israel, Fatah and Hamas abroad.

Prof. Hillel Frisch, an expert on Islamic politics at Bar-Ilan’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, described Suleiman as a veteran and highly effective security chief, who made a powerful impression on those who met him.

Within Egypt, Suleiman, 74, is far more popular than Mubarak, and has escaped the widespread anger over corruption, maintaining a clean image.

Born in southern Egypt in 1936, Suleiman enrolled at the country’s Military Academy aged 18. He rose through the ranks, and took part in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War against Israel.

In 1993, he was appointed by Mubarak to head the all-powerful General Intelligence Directorate, which has been described by Egyptian journalist Issandr Amrani as an organization that “combines the intelligence-gathering elements of the CIA, the counterterrorism role of the FBI, the protection duties of the Secret Service, and the high-level diplomacy of the State Department.”

Following his appointment, Suleiman was tasked with stemming a major terrorism campaign launched by the al-Gamal al-Islamiyya group, which killed hundreds of members of the Egyptian security forces and foreign tourists, in a string of attacks throughout the 1990s. In 2003, al-Gammal al-Islamiyya renounced terrorism, and other Islamist elements had been weakened or forced to disband by Suleiman’s war against them.

On a regional level, Suleiman is Egypt’s most important envoy to Israel, Fatah and Hamas. He is extremely well versed in the affairs of both Israel and the Palestinians, according to Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

Suleiman oversaw numerous mediation efforts aimed at getting Fatah and Hamas to agree to a power-sharing deal over the past two decades.

At the same time, Egypt’s secular regime has always regarded secular Fatah as a natural ally, and remained suspicious of Hamas and its Islamist ideology. Under Suleiman’s auspices, Egypt provided military training for Fatah’s security forces, with a view to enabling it to keep control of the Gaza Strip, prior to Hamas’s 2007 coup.

The Federal Reserve cherishes its privacy and has fought tooth and nail to keep it. Nevertheless, its ability to shower greenbacks on favored corporations and foreign banks may soon be drawing to a close thank s to the 2010 elections.

On January 26 the father-and-son team of Rep. Ron Paul (left, R-Texas) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) “introduced companion legislation in both chambers of the United States Congress to require a full and thorough audit of the Federal Reserve,” according to Business Wire. Officially titled the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2011, the House and Senate versions of the bill are numbered H.R. 459 and S. 202, respectively.

Ron Paul, of course, introduced this same legislation during the last Congress, where it attracted 320 cosponsors and eventually passed the House. However, by that time it had been, in Paul’s words, “gutted” by the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and lost most of its effectiveness. One can be certain that won’t happen this time around: Paul is now chairman of that subcommittee.

The Senate version, sponsored by Rep. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), had 32 cosponsors but was replaced under political pressure by a watered-down measure that managed to survive as an amendment to the financial reform bill. Despite this, the mild auditing requirements did manage to bring to light the Fed’s suspect dealings with corporations and foreign financial institutions. Imagine the skullduggery a complete audit would reveal!

The Pauls’ new version of the Audit the Fed bill already has 56 cosponsors in the House and two (Republicans Jim DeMint of South Carolina and David Vitter of Louisiana) in the Senate...

In short, everything the Fed does would be brought out into the open, giving Americans the chance to learn just who has been getting sweetheart deals from the central bank and how much the Fed has been inflating the money supply to fund the U.S. government’s century-long spending spree. Armed with that knowledge, Americans are likely to demand serious reform or, better yet, complete abolition of the “Creature from Jekyll Island.” That, of course, would suit the author of End the Fed quite nicely...MORE...LINK-----

Chris Moore comments:

Courageous and noble Ron and Rand Paul prove that a handful of people really can make all the difference if they're the right people and they subscribe to the right ideology, and they can somehow manage to get their foot in the door the corrupt system and wrench it wide open.

Opening up the thieving Fed and its noxiously corrupt bankster moneychangers would be a great first step towards getting this country back on the right track.

Cairo is burning. So is Egypt. Twitter is exploding. Everyone seems to have an opinion—many who do have never even been to Egypt but feel a strong sense of solidarity with the most remarkable revolution in a generation, perhaps. A revolution which importantly is not really caused by Twitter or by Facebook—as much as the self congratulatory social networking types in the West would like to believe.

Full disclosure: Sleepless but still sitting in relative comfort in my Manhattan apartment I am one of those relentless tweeters. However my obsession stems from a long love and association with Egypt and the presence of way too many friends who have jumped into the chaos not really knowing what consequences their actions might have for themselves or their friends and families.

I must also be clear. At this point, on this the longest Egyptian night in a generation, perhaps longer—most Western self professed Islam/Middle East and other assorted pundits have no clue about the harsh reality of Egyptian life. Many have probably never taken a walk down Mashriet Nasser, the largest slum in Cairo. This is why the do not realize that this “revolution” is not about social networking and its success. The majority of the 80 million people of Egypt live in abject poverty. They do not even have cell-phones let alone smartphones like the iPhone or the Droid. They go to kiosks to make calls. A pretty substantial number of them have NEVER used the internet and do not have email accounts: the complicated mechanisms of self-promotion and information gathering and sharing on social networks is not a part of their lives—they have never had the money or the resources to get access to this other world which often lives in the relatively more affluent neighborhoods like Zamalek or Garden City or Mohandaseen—all within some walking distance of where the dissent started in Tahrir Square.

The majority of the protesters in Cairo, in Suez, in Alexandria, in Luxor, in Mahla, in Manoura and all over this ancient land which is the very heart of what it means to be Arab—are not “twittering” or “facebooking” or “emailing” or even watching the landmark live coverage that Al-Jazeera is providing. They are out on the streets—and yes, without phone access—risking their lives and giving vent to three decades and perhaps more, of anger.

They are fighting for very basic human rights. They are fighting for affordable food. They are fighting for dignity. They are fighting for accountability. They are fighting to somehow improve the non-existent financial opportunities in their lives.

They are not interested in Mohamed AlBaradei’s Nobel prize or his rather recent and opportunist political ambitions. Most of them have not really seen him and have no idea of what he has been up to for the last three decades as they have suffered. They are angry that he decided to show up just last night and started posturing immediately as the potential savior and the best person to lead them into their uncertain future. Many here in the West would be surprised to know that a lot of these simple folk would actually prefer the “Muslim Brotherhood” taking over. Atleast they recognize the “Islam Light” the Brotherhood has honed to perfection after a pretty radical and conservative beginning with an idealogue like Banna...MORE...LINK

After Tunisia, the disturbances have moved on to Egypt, Yemen and Jordan. Despite what is being predicted, I wouldn’t count on any of these countries undergoing the same kind of turnover.

Mubarak is a canny old goat and his secret police forces are extensive and effective. And given a choice between complying with Obama’s demands and giving in, on cracking down, he will crack down. All that is being accomplished by the calls for Mubarak to democratize and resign is to show how irrelevant America is and how worthless it is as an ally.

Probably the dumbest piece so far comes from Jackson Diehl at the Washington Post

the Obama administration’s embrace of Mubarak, even as the octogenarian strongman refused to allow the emergence of a moderate, middle-class-based, pro-democracy opposition, has helped bring the United States’ most important Arab ally to the brink of revolution. Mass popular demonstrations have rocked the country since Tuesday; Friday, when millions of Egyptians will assemble in mosques, could be fateful.

Key word here, mosques. Read Muslim Brotherhood. Mubarak will not be replaced by Diehl’s imaginary moderate middle class democracy opposition. It will be a tyranny of one kind or another. And the odds are still on the Muslim Brotherhood as the only force capable of replacing Mubarak.

Second, the Obama administration’s Middle East experts concluded that there was no chance of serious reform - much less revolution - under Mubarak. So they plotted at playing a “long game” of slowly nurturing grass-roots movements and promoting civil society, in preparation for the day when Egypt might be ready for real reform. In this they badly underestimated the secular opposition that was rapidly growing in the blogosphere and that months ago began rallying behind former U.N. nuclear director Mohamed ElBaradei.

This is so much crap that it could be shoveled to make strawberries. Only a Beltway journalist would take the Egyptian blogsphere seriously as an opposition force. The Egyptian blogsphere consists of mostly middle and upper class privileged Egyptian kiddies. They will be absolutely irrelevant once the shooting starts and they have no role whatsoever in determining who takes over the country.

Mohamed El Baradei’s “popularity” is an even bigger myth. El Baradei is mostly popular with Western journalists. No one in Egypt gives two shakes of a donkey’s tail about him.

Those demands are coherent and eminently reasonable: Mubarak should step down and be replaced by a transitional government, headed by ElBaradei and including representatives of all pro-democracy forces.

How is this reasonable? ElBaradei hasn’t won an actual election. Why should it be assumed that he should take power? Because he’s a favorite of the WaPo columnists? Get real.

That government could then spend six months to a year rewriting the constitution, allowing political parties to freely organize and preparing for genuinely democratic elections. Given time to establish themselves, secular forces backed by Egypt’s growing middle class are likely to rise to the top in those elections - not the Islamists that Mubarak portrays as the only alternative.

And then happy bunnies will fly out of their ears and sing magical songs about something or other.

Really? Open elections. That are going to be won by the secular middle-class? What secular middle-class? Most of Egypt is poor. The vast majority of it is religious and fanatical. If this had happened in the 1950’s, it still probably wouldn’t have worked, but there might have been a shot. But now. A secular middle-class government in Egypt?

I don’t have the proper words to express how insane and delusional this is. The only secular governments in the Muslim world are run by dictators. And that is how it is going to stay.

A democratic election will be won by the Muslim Brotherhood. No ifs ands or buts. They may temporarily enlist secular allies, but they will ultimately rule alone. They are happy to use ElBaradei as a front, but the end result will be an Islamist regime...MORE...LINK------------------------

Chris Moore comments:

Greenfield writes:

A secular middle-class government in Egypt? I don’t have the proper words to express how insane and delusional this is. The only secular governments in the Muslim world are run by dictators. And that is how it is going to stay. A democratic election will be won by the Muslim Brotherhood.

These neocons and statist-liberal cretins are unbelievable. They back every "secular" tyrant between America and Iran to the hilt with billions in U.S. taxpayer funds, finance the oppression and impoverishment of the Arab masses for decades on end, launch wars of aggression for Israel and to oust formerly U.S.-backed secular tyrant sock puppets like Saddam Hussein who get out of hand, and then they profess indignation that Islamists -- apparently some of the only Arabs with balls enough to take on these corrupt, murderous, dictatorial statist-authoritarian regimes and make some kind of effort to alleviate the suffering of the masses of poor -- become heir to any kind of democratic efforts.

I've got to hand it to Greenfield though: at least he's honest enough to admit that so called "secularism" is a liberal code word for statist-authoritarianism designed to oppress and genocide religious folk.

I have no love for Islamists, nor do I think totalitarian religiosity is any kind of moral answer. On the other hand, these "secular" statist-liberal-capitalist murderers, degenerates, and Zionist "elites" that have taken control of so much of the West aren't much better than Islamists, and in the long run might even be worse. And, as Greenfield admits, they're willing to engage in devil's bargains with murderous dictators who kill their own people by the tens of thousands all to play "the great game" which at root is a means to maintain the post-Christian, increasingly sick, morally hollow, hyper-materialistic, cushy liberal-capitalist lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

It all reminds me of how liberals in the 20's told Americans that the Bolshevik revolution had "liberated" Russian Christian peasantry even as it was murdering them by the millions, and reminds me how FDR allied with "secular" dictator Joseph Stalin in World War II -- a man that already had the blood of millions of Soviet-murdered Christians on his hands -- and declared him to be lovable old "Uncle Joe."

Liberal hypocrisy and moral rot is unbelievable. That level of cynicism is truly a sickness.

...Egypt is the perfect candidate for what we might call the Bouazizian revolution – a US-supported kleptocracy ruled by a coalition of the military, the technocrats, and Washington, with the overarching figure of Hosni Mubarak – now 82 – presiding over it all. As in Tunisia, one of the key issues is the succession: rumors that the Egyptian dictator was planning to pass power on to his son, Gamal, fueled popular fury against this latter-day Pharaoh. In both cases, the state is controlled by a single party – in Egypt, it is the National Democratic Party — still resting on the long-ago laurels of an anti-colonialist uprising, and since reified into a bureaucratic incrustation on the body politic.

Another similarity – which, somehow, most commentators have failed to note – is that all these upsurges are against regimes that have enjoyed practically unqualified US military and political support. Tunisia’s Ben Ali was a favorite of George W. Bush’s, and the Tunisian tyrant continued to enjoy support from the Obama administration. US aid to the regime hovered in the $20 million range, all of it in military, "anti-terrorist," and anti-narcotics detection sectors, and was slated for an increase in FY 2010. Egypt, of course, is the linchpin of US-friendly countries in the region, and Yemen is the latest battleground in our never-ending "war on terrorism."

Just follow the money. The American taxpayers have shelled out an average $2 billion-plus per year to our Egyptian sock puppets since 1979. As for Yemen, as Warren Strobel points out, "U.S. aid to Yemen increased significantly in fiscal year 2010 to about $67 million, and is due to increase in the current fiscal year to $106 million." That’s not counting $170 million in military aid. This gravy train is undoubtedly the single largest income stream flowing into the country: Yemen, in short, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US government. The same can fairly be said about Egypt.

On her January surprise visit to Yemen, Hillary Clinton is said to have "gently chided" Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to loosen his tenacious grip on the country’s political life, but as she got on the plane to depart she stumbled and took quite a fall – prefiguring the probable fate of Saleh, and, indeed, the various US puppet regimes in the region. The US is taking the same approach to Egypt, where demonstrators are demanding the resignation of Mubarak and being murdered in the streets: oh, but don’t worry, says White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, the Mubarak regime is "stable" in spite of it all.

This is arrant nonsense: Mubarak will follow Ben Ali into exile soon enough. Gamal has already packed up and fled to London with his family – and, reportedly, 100 pieces of luggage! The Egyptian authorities deny it, and the Guardian reports news of the son’s flight "appears to be wishful thinking."

In any case, the geniuses in charge of the US government are quite wrong if they think Mubarak can withstand the rising tide of protest, and the reason for their blindness isn’t hard to see. This administration seems to have forgotten the catchphrase popularized by its Clintonian predecessor: "It’s the economy, stupid." In this case, it’s the world economy, stupid: the global economic downturn that economist Nouriel Roubini – who predicted the 2008 implosion of the financial markets – says "can topple regimes." Commodity inflation means skyrocketing food prices – around two thirds of the consumer price index for emerging economies, as Roubini points out.

Roubini – and nearly every libertarian economist of the "Austrian" school – has long warned about the coming financial crisis of the West, the first seismic tremors of which we have been experiencing here in America since November 2008. But this is just the beginning: in the short term, unfunded liabilities and the interest on the national debt will account for a whopping 60 percent of GDP, and it won’t be long before it’s 100 percent. When that day comes – or, perhaps, long before it – the worldwide economic meltdown will be paying us a rather unwelcome visit, with consequences that are likely to make Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Greece look like romps in the park.

Our rulers can’t see the locomotive coming down the tracks, even though they’re standing right in its way: they still insist on the myth of "American exceptionalism," which supposedly anoints us with a special destiny and gives us the right to order the world according to our uniquely acquired position of preeminence. Yet that preeminence is increasingly being called into question by the economic facts of reality – and our own refusal to get our financial house in order. Blinded by hubris, and the habit of authority, the political class in America is no different, in essence, from its counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt: corrupt, arrogant, and used to commanding obedience, the Best and the Brightest are prisoners of their own complacency. Unable to comprehend, or sympathize with, the plight of the world’s miserable masses, encased in a bubble where the worst crisis they have to personally face is a broken chair lift at Davos, these preening Louis XIVs and Marie Antoinettes are in for a rude shock.

The nature of these populist revolts against authority will take on a different character according to where and when they occur, naturally enough: in Tunisia and Egypt, we see protests sparked by petty humiliations such as Mr. Bouazizi had to endure. In Greece and Great Britain, mass upsurges are the result of austerity budgets that cut ordinary people off at the knees while the banksters get bailed out. In America, we see the Tea Party rising against the tyranny of indebtedness and economic strangulation of the ordinary citizen – but this is just a prelude to the rising chorus of discontent and outright rebellion that will threaten American society in the years to come.

The revolutionary wave now sweeping the world will not exempt America, in spite of the myth of "American exceptionalism." We cannot and will not be excepted from the iron laws of economics, which mandate that you can’t consume more than you produce – no matter how many Federal Reserve notes (otherwise known as "money") you print...MORE...LINK

A student calendar for the 2011-2012 school year, published by the European Union, has conspicuously omitted Christian holidays, while retaining Jewish and Muslim holidays, reports the Catholic News Agency.

Holiday mainstays such as Christmas and Easter don’t appear on the more than 3 million copies printed by the EU, for free-of-charge distribution to students across the region.

Despite the omission of Christian holidays, the European Union has made an effort to include “Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Chinese holidays and festivals,” reports Examiner.com’s Kevin Whiteman.

Dutch Deputy Foreign Minister Ben Knapen has slammed the decision, according to Radio Netherlands, demanding an explanation for what he refers to as “an absurd omission.”

The European Commission has reportedly taken responsibility for committing a “grave error” in omitting the Christian holidays, to the tune of 5 million euros (or $6.65 million).

André Rouvoet, a political leader of one of the Dutch Christian political parties, is suspicious of that “grave error.”

“This is an incredible blunder,” said Rouvoet. “It makes you wonder what kind of agenda the European Commission has set itself.”

A petition by the Christian Democratic Party in France has reportedly begun, calling for the EU to cease distribution of the calendar and replace it with a printing that includes the Christian holidays...LINK-------------------------

Chris Moore comments:

In the West, "secular" Big Government is nothing but trojan horse for a war against Christianity at the behest of statist-liberals, statist-corporatist capitalists, and perennial anti-Christian, freedom-haters of certain religions that don't proselytize and thus need a powerful, pseudo "secular" state to do their bidding.

It's a safe bet that anyone who supports intense government centralization, any kind of authoritarian statism, or Big Government in any respect, is anti-Christian behind the mask.-------------------------

Vice President Joe Biden spoke to the PBS NewsHour tonight with the most direct US governent comments yet about the gathering Egypt protests against President Hosni Mubarak's 29-year reign.

Mr. Biden's comments are unlikely to be well-received by regime opponents, as they fit a narrative of steadfast US support for a government they want to bring down. About eight protesters and one policeman have died this week as Egypt has sought to bring down the heavy hand of the state against opponents. Since the US provides about $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt a year, the repressive apparatus of the state is seen by many in Egypt as hand in glove with the US.

Ahead of a day that could prove decisive, NewsHour host Jim Lehrer asked Biden if the time has "come for President Mubarak of Egypt to go?" Biden answered: "No. I think the time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction that – to be more responsive to some... of the needs of the people out there."

Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.”

He also appeared to make one of the famous Biden gaffes, in comments that could be interpreted as questioning the legitimacy of protesters' demands. Monitor Cairo correspondent Kristen Chick, other reporters in the country, and activists have generally characterized the main calls of demonstrators as focused on freedom, democracy, an end to police torture, and a more committed government effort to address the poverty that aflicts millions of Egyptians...MORE...LINK

Back in August of 2010, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the federal deficit for 2011 to be $1 trillion. On Thursday, after revising its assumptions, the CBO announced they missed the mark by $500 billion. The deficit number has been revised upward to $1.5 trillion, and could bring the national debt to $20 trillion by 2021.

Back in August the CBO assumed that the Bush tax cuts would end in December, that doctors would get another financial haircut under Medicare, and that unemployment benefits wouldn’t be extended. It also assumed modest growth in the economy and consequently in tax revenues and that spending would be somewhat restrained. The CBO was wrong on all counts, and the difference between anticipated revenues and spending has virtually exploded. One of the annoying assumptions, of course, is that the extension of the Bush tax cuts is considered a “cost” to the government. That assumption is based on the concept that all revenues belong initially to the government, and then as that government allows individuals to keep part of their incomes, those are considered costs to the government. It is the concept of human rights turned on its head.

In its report, the CBO points out that, despite the stimulus programs under the Bush and Obama administrations, employment (which declined by 7.3 million jobs during the Great Recession) only gained 70,000 jobs “on net” between June 2009 and December 2010. Consequently, tax revenues have fallen to just 14.8 percent of GDP, a low unmatched in decades.

But, not to worry. As the CBO points out, by 2014 the deficits will be in decline again, to below $700 billion a year. But that assumes that the Bush tax extension ends in 2012, thus increasing government revenues once again. If those tax cuts are extended however, deficits will increase by between $400 billion and $500 billion each year thereafter.

Simple math concludes that deficits could add another $6 to 7 trillion to the national debt by the end of the decade, with the present $14 trillion looking paltry indeed...MORE...LINK

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul announced that on Thursday, January 24, 2011, the Senate Tea Party Caucus will be holding its first ever annual meeting. Senator Paul is leading the creation of the Tea Party Caucus in the Senate, modeled after the earlier creation of a House Tea Party Caucus by Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann. Both Bachmann and Paul are Republicans, and Thursday’s meeting is expected to include several members of the Republican Senate Caucus, as well as activists linked to various Tea Party groups throughout the country.

The Senate Tea Party Caucus fulfills a critical, yet almost-Socratic role, as it finds itself within a legislative body hostile to Tea Party goals of smaller government, fiscal responsibility, balancing the budget, reducing the deficit, and a national security policy respectful of both civil liberties and the need for a strong national defense. Caucus members face opposition not only from the Democrats, who control the Senate by a 53-47 Majority, as well as from Senate Republicans, who, due to the nature of the Senate and its composition, tend to be more bipartisan, pragmatic, and less committed to the ideological purity held as an objective standard by Tea Party activists.

The Senate Tea Party Caucus finds itself marginalized also due to the fact that numerically, its size is insignificant. In a legislative body with 100 members, only 3, to date, have announced that they will be members of the Tea Party Caucus in the Senate: Senator Paul, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, and Utah Senator Mike Lee. The three senators, do, however have political clout and significance, particularly in the domain of the public eye and the media.

The three are scheduled to meet with John Tate, President of Congressman Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, Grover Norquist, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), President of Americans for Tax Reform, and Islamist Activist, and Tea Party Express Chairwoman Amy Kremer.

The commitment of the three to the principles which enabled massive Republican victories in congressional races throughout the country in the November 2010 elections, as well as their willingness to pressure members of the Republican Party into abiding by these principles and legislating according to them, remains a challenge that is simultaneously daunting and crucial.

The Republican Party has the possibility to capitalize on the widespread dissatisfaction resulting from the Obama Administration’s failure to articulate policies that resonate with and find support among the American People, and offer a different solution utilizing the same campaign principles of fiscal conservatism, smaller government, and more individual liberty.

This feat remains an uphill battle for the three senators, who not only are on the margins of the Senate Republican Caucus, but even campaigned as marginal candidates, soaring to victory in Republican Primaries, as they challenged the big government approaches of longtime Establishment incumbents and Establishment-backed candidates...MORE...LINK

New members in Congress may face tough choices as Tea Partiers say the defense budget shouldn’t be exempt from budget cuts. According to MSNBC.com on Jan. 21, although the $700 billion annual budget is one that few in Congress have been willing to tackle, Tea Party groups declare that if spending is to be cut, “the military’s budget needs to be part of the mix.”

Tea Party Patriots founder Mark Meckler observed:

The widely held sentiment among Tea Party Patriot members is that every item in the budget, including military spending and foreign aid, must be on the table. It is time to get serious about preserving the country for our posterity. The mentality that certain programs are "off the table"must be taken off the table.

Meckler was referring to the defense, Homeland Security and veterans’ programs exemptions in “Pledge to America” made by House Republican leaders last fall. But new House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) reports that defense could now be up for cuts.

Along with most Tea Party groups, the Tea Party Patriots list as their core values fiscal responsibility, constitutionally-limited government, and free markets. Consequently, they believe that each spending bill should be based on specific constitutional authority. Because most spending bills have long not been so based, Tea Partiers and other fiscal conservatives made their displeasure known last November, and are now demanding reduced spending — including defense expenditures.

The entire Tea Party movement could face criticism in pushing for cuts in defense spending: opponents claim that proposed cuts would weaken national security post–September 11 and jeopardize jobs at a time of already high unemployment...MORE...LINK

CAIRO (Reuters) - Police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse Egyptian protesters in Cairo in the early hours of Wednesday after a long day of unprecedented protests calling for President Hosni Mubarak to end his 30 year rule.

On Tuesday, two protesters and one policeman were killed in clashes and protests that erupted in several Egyptian cities, where demonstrators angry at poverty and repression have been inspired by this month's downfall of the leader of Tunisia.

"Down, Down Hosni Mubarak," protesters chanted after fleeing from the central Tahrir square. Some threw stones at the police, who charged them with batons to prevent the protesters returning to the square after it was cleared by using teargas.

"Bullies," fleeing protesters shouted. Others cried: "You are not men". Police sprayed a water cannon on protesters and moved in rows into the square.

Sporadic clashes took place into early Wednesday, but by the pre-dawn hours protesters appeared to have been dispersed. Police were milling about in Tahrir square, while street sweepers cleared away rocks and litter.

"Down with Mubarak" was still scrawled on a wall. Police trucks were lined up along a side street...

Web activists, who called for Tuesday's "Day of Wrath" against poverty and repression, have become some of the most vociferous critics of Mubarak and his three decades in office.

Their complaints echo those of fellow Arabs in Tunisia: soaring food prices, a lack of jobs and authoritarian rule that usually crushes protests swiftly and with a heavy hand.

Tuesday's demonstrations brought many thousands onto the streets of Cairo and several other cities in a coordinated wave of anti-government protests not witnessed since Mubarak came to office in 1981 after Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Islamists.

The population is growing 2 percent a year and has a "youth bulge", with some 60 percent under 30 years old, including 90 percent of jobless Egyptians. About 40 percent of citizens live on less than $2 a day and a third are illiterate.

DEMANDS

Demands by the protesters were posted on Facebook and passed around Tahrir square on slips of paper before police moved in.

They included calling for Mubarak to step down, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif to quit, parliament to be dissolved and the formation of a national government. A union activist repeated the demands to the crowd in the square by megaphone...MORE...LINK

As of Wednesday we have seen the euro rise 7 straight days, which caused the USDX to fall to 78.14, this in spite of having 10-year rates in Spain, Portugal and Ireland rising 3 bps.

Both food and energy prices have risen at double-digit rates. This is an inflation reflection of 1979-80, 1996 and 2008. In the 1979 and 1980 and in the 2008 period our inflation gauge measured real inflation of 14-1/4%. Both occurred in recessions similar to today’s inflationary depression.

Today’s energy prices will reflect a loss in buying power of more than $60 billion in the US alone. Higher grain and meat prices will add $40 billion to total, a loss in buying power of $100 billion. By the looks of it costs and inflation will rise further causing further cuts in GDP consumption. These costs will affect 70% of the stimulus and QE2. That means very little consumption gains and stagnant unemployment.

The Consumer Sentiment Index fell from 74.5 in December to 72.7 in January, which does not instill confidence in the economy. Current conditions fell from 85.3 to 79.8, a 3-month low. Large household goods purchases fell to 129 from 140. The auto purchase outlook was fair to poor as well.

Real wages based on a phony 1.2% CPI, fell 0.4% when in reality the loss in buying power was much higher. Every indicator is in the minus column. This is reflected in income expectations for the year that fell from 125 to 116. Real expectations dropped from 64 to 55, the lowest level in almost 60 years. There is no recovery and there will be no recovery. The numbers are staring you right in your face. 2011 will be lucky to see 2% to 2-1/4% growth, as government spends $862 billion on pork and the Fed buys $1.6 trillion in Treasuries, Agencies and toxic waste.

We have two economic and financial Americas, one of poverty and advancing poverty and one of sumptuous wealth. The top 20% own 93% of financial assets, which could be the seeds of upheaval. The average family is one or two weeks away from starvation and debt collapse. How do you make up the difference working 34.3 hours a week as gasoline rises from $2.50 to $3.50 a gallon and the price of food advances 50%?...MORE...LINK

The Federal Reserve announced that it would use a new accounting trick to conceal potential losses on its massive investment portfolio, transferring its liabilities to the U.S. Treasury instead. The new methodology would essentially prevent the central bank’s bankruptcy — on paper, at least — right as the debate on its solvency heats up. But the move is already raising eyebrows among analysts, who say it could severely impact the credibility of both the Fed and the U.S. government.

During the economic crisis, the Fed created trillions of dollars to bail out foreign institutions, buy up lousy mortgage-backed securities, manipulate markets, and more. But enormous potential losses on the central bank’s “investments” could be coming back to haunt it. So, on January 6, in a barely noticed policy change buried in its weekly report, the Fed said it would simply stop treating its losses as a liability against its capital base.

Basically, the change means that when any of the Fed’s regional branches lose money, that loss would be recorded on the Treasury’s books instead of as a hit to the central bank‘s capital position. Then, in theory, the Fed would send more of its future profits to the government to make up for it. The measure would essentially mean that, on paper, the Fed could never show a negative capital position.

If short-term interest rates were to rise quickly, due to either an economic recovery or increasing inflation, the Fed could end up paying out more in interest and dividends to member banks than it was taking in. That could also force the central bank to sell some of its wildly leveraged portfolio — including government bonds and mortgage-backed securities — at a huge loss.

"Could the Fed go broke? The answer to this question was 'Yes,' but is now 'No,'" Raymond Stone, managing director of financial-research firm Stone & McCarthy, told Reuters. "An accounting methodology change at the central bank will allow the Fed to incur losses, even substantial losses, without eroding its capital."

Of course, the Fed can’t really go bankrupt — all it has to do is create more fiat money. But because by law the central bank must send to the Treasury most of its profits (after operating costs, interest payments, and dividends paid to member-bank stockholders), it isn’t allowed to use those profits to build up “capital” reserves to shield it from losses. So, to get around that, the Fed would simply stop sending profits to the Treasury until its books were in better shape...MORE...LINK-------------------------

If Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party has its way, the results of an online poll may have Soviet-state founder and Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin evicted from his current Red Square mausoleum to spend the rest of his corporeal existence buried six feet under a cozy gravesite in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). The poll, which can be found at goodbyelenin.ru, asks only one question: “Do you support the idea of burying the body of V. Lenin?” — requiring a simple "Yes" or "No" answer. As of Monday, January 24, nearly 70% have voted in favor of burial.

If the United Russia party, whose logo appears on the upper left-hand corner of the poll website, follows through on the poll results, Lenin’s lease may soon expire.

Although nostalgic euphoria for Josef Stalin remains high among Russia’s youth, Lenin does not favor so well. To the average Russian, Lenin invokes memories of religious suppression of Eastern Orthodox Christians at the hands of his Cheka (forerunner to the KGB).

The proposal to remove Lenin’s body was brought up by yet another Vladimir — State Duma deputy Vladimir Medina, who stated on the United Russia website:

I think every year we must raise the same question of the removal of the remains of Lenin's body from the mausoleum. It's [a] kind of ridiculous, pagan-necrophilia mission we have in Red Square. No, Lenin's body is not there, experts know that [of what has been] preserved [only to] the order of 10% of the body [remains], everything else ... there has long been gutted and replaced.

Medina went on to base his argument on the original wishes of Lenin before he died, observing:

They wanted to bury him in St. Petersburg with his mother. But the Communists did not care about the desires and most of the leader[s], and his relatives. They had to create a cult, substituting religion, and make something out of Lenin, a replacement of Christ. Something did not happen. With this, perversion must end.

We have referred many times to the push for a centralized world government control system as the “open conspiracy”. Groups such as Bilderberg, The Trilateral Commission and The Council on Foreign Relations are kingpins of this agenda, shaping the policies of the politicians and power brokers that they have effectively bought.

A rather bizarre article in The Economist today addresses this power structure and far from dismissing it as a conspiracy theory, simply reaffirms the fact that “the cosmopolitan elite” do indeed “flock together” at such gatherings and elusive clubs to shape the world that the “superclass” wishes to inhabit.

Of course, The Economist is a perfect avenue for the open conspiracy to be flaunted, given that its editor is a regular attendee at the annual Bilderberg conference, an admission the piece proudly discloses in its opening paragraphs.

Tongue firmly in cheek, the piece describes Bilderberg as “an evil conspiracy bent on world domination”, and then goes on to affirm that actually yes, the group really does dominate world events.

It was responsible for the single European currency, it plays host to the world’s most influential aristocrats and business people, as well as a small cadre of journalists, representing the biggest global media corporations, who are sworn to comply with Chatham House rules, meaning they cannot disclose any of the “big ideas” that are hatched at Bilderberg.

“The world is a complicated place, with oceans of new information sloshing around.” the piece continues, “To run a multinational organisation, it helps if you have a rough idea of what is going on. It also helps to be on first-name terms with other globocrats. So the cosmopolitan elite–international financiers, bureaucrats, charity bosses and thinkers–constantly meet and talk. They flock to elite gatherings… They form clubs.”

The most influential of those clubs, according to the article, are Bilderberg, The Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and The Group of Thirty. They are now shedding their secretive natures and revealing themselves to the world. The “globocratic shindigs are opening up”, the piece acknowledges...

Don’t blame the international “globocrat” elite for the financial crisis though, the piece urges, claiming that the superclass were “caught napping”. And while the piece admits that some international bankers are responsible for looting the system wholesale, it attempts to convince readers that ultimately the presence of an inter-connected international elite actually saved the world from complete financial meltdown – so you can sleep easy at night.

Of course, anyone who closely follows the activity of such elite groups will tell you that they absolutely were not caught off guard and were fully aware that the crisis was being carefully massaged back in 2006. Reports from the Bilderberg meetings in Canada in ’06 and in Turkey in ’07 predicted a global housing crash and forecast a prolonged financial meltdown as a result. The group has since been debating exactly how it should move to shape the economic situation in order to further its own global influence and that of the (honestly, we’re not evil at all) “superclass”.

A decade ago anyone who even spoke of the existence of Bilderberg, let alone suggested it was a major manipulator of world events, was roundly categorized as a crazy tin foil hat wearing kook. Today the very same assertions make up the stuff of editorials in the world’s global press...MORE...LINK

Last night, Keith Olbermann, the host of MSNBC’s flagship and top-rated Countdown program, abruptly told his viewers that he had been fired by the network. On the same day, Jeffrey Immelt, the top honcho of General Electric, was hobnobbing with Obama at a GE plant in Schenectady, New York – a plant which has received subsidies from the Obama regime. Government financial help for GE has not gone mainly to the firm’s remaining industrial manufacturing divisions, but rather– and in boxcar numbers –to GE Capital, long notorious as a derivatives hedge fund in drag.

Immelt, a well-known asset-stripper and runaway shop devotee, has also just been appointed as the boss of Obama’s new White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which in turn is part of Obama’s sharp right turn towards austerity, tax cuts for the rich, and a new assault on the Social Security-Medicare-Medicaid-jobless insurance complex. In this regard, Wall Street puppet Obama is reputed to be preparing new historical crimes against the American people, and new stabs in the back for his own base. This goes together with Obama’s naming of JP Morgan banker William Daley, an advocate of free trade sellouts, as White House chief of staff, and the new prominence of Goldman Sachs associate and derivatives deregulator Gene Sperling as the successor to Larry Summers as economics czar.

During the 2007-2008 campaign, Olbermann had thoroughly degraded himself by acting the role of a media toady to the new Messiah, and the implacable defamer of Obama’s rivals. But, over the last few months, Olbermann had launched some critical sallies against the Anointed One. Olbermann was increasingly critical and disillusioned about the administration. He was especially indignant about Obama’s December sellout on the Bush tax cuts for the rich, pointing out Obama’s dangerous erosion of the integrity of Social Security, and the cynical betrayal of the 99ers, the long-term jobless.

So put two and two together: did Immelt fire Olbermann as a gesture to please Obama by silencing a possible critic of the White House’s stunning rightward lunge? This makes much more sense than the competing explanation, which is that Olbermann was driven out by Comcast, which is buying NBC Universal from GE. MSNBC is still under GE control, and will be for weeks or months.

Olbermann was still far from breaking with Obama, or for calling for a Democrat to challenge the tenant of the White House in the primaries, or for demanding that Obama be dumped from the Democratic ticket. Even so, with a raft of further capitulations to reactionary demands in the offing for next week’s State of the Union, Olbermann’s response on any given day was unpredictable. The Countdown host was unquestionably a loose cannon, apt to go off the reservation at any moment by embarrassing the Messiah with barbed Special Comments that hit home with the liberal Democratic base.

For Obama, an obvious part of dropping the mask of hope and change for the second term, revealing the hideous bankers’ stooge underneath, is the need to protect his left flank by suppressing likely political attacks from that quarter. Quite apart from anything Olbermann has done or not done, his ouster is designed to chill any anti-Obama invective that might come from the left-liberal complex of MSNBC-Huffington and their acolytes. Obama is reminding the fatuous left libs that he is after all a brutal thug in his own right, and can be his own Rahm Emmanuel...MORE...LINK-------------------------Increasingly critical from the Left as Obama turned out to be a populist fraud who surrounded himself with Party satraps and wealthy elites, Olbermann had become a thorn in Obama's side

But why should they? Why should China abandon a trade policy that is working marvelously well for them, and adopt a trade policy that is failing dismally for us? Does that make sense?

Why should any nation emulate the U.S. trade policy of the Bush-Clinton-Bush era that has stripped us of a third of our manufacturing jobs and made us dependent on China and the world for the needs of our national life and the borrowed money to pay for them?

Why would China, seeking to make herself an independent and self-sufficient nation, adopt a policy that cost us our independence?

And what are the Chinese doing in their ascendancy to first power on earth that we did not do in ours?

Are our Milton Friedmanite free-traders unaware of how it was that, in the last third of the 19th century, we left the British in the dust? Are they unaware we had the highest tariffs on earth to price British products out of our market and goad rapacious Yankees into building new factories to produce the same goods we were then importing from Great Britain?

Lest we forget, the Americans who turned this country into the industrial marvel of mankind were known as “Robber Barons.”

As they put America first in our rise, the Chinese are putting China first.

Our grand strategists demand to know why the Chinese are making these brash claims to all the islands in the South China and East China seas. Why are they telling us to keep our aircraft carriers out of the Yellow Sea and out of the Taiwan Strait? Who do they think they are?

The Chinese are nationalists, Americans used to be free enterprise nationalists with Christianity as their primary moral authority. Today, American is a post-Christian country in most respects that matter, there has been an elitist cold war against Christianity here for decades now, our elites seem to see themselves as some kind of internationalist secular, liberal-capitalist vanguard, and Americans have been dumbed down by crass materialism and cultural Marxism.

We need to get back to the fundamentals, decentralize, protect our borders and nationalist interests, and cut our corrupt "elites" loose and let them wander into the sunset with their dangerous, narcissistic delusions.

Friday, January 21, 2011

The late William Lederer wrote the book: Our Own Worst Enemy. That tome dealt with our boondoggles in Southeast Asia. He died this past December at the age of 97, but he introduced a compelling note that Americans prove their own worst enemy.

If you look back at Vietnam, who started it? What caused it? President Lyndon Baines Johnson used the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" to wage war on Vietnam that killed several million people. What did he accomplish? He killed several million people and wreaked havoc on their civilization and ours. He died a very depressed man for his enormous folly.

When you look at President George W. Bush's provocation for the Iraq War, you see the same shallow veneer for provoking that conflict in his "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Saddam Hussein possessed nothing of the sort. He remained a sandbox dictator. Nonetheless, Bush created a horrific war that will continue killing and maiming human beings on both sides for years to come. President Barack Obama buys into the same horrific stupidity and arrogance.

Yet, whether Vietnam or Iraq, Americans find themselves as their own worst enemy. They allow their leaders to lead them by their 'emotional' or even 'jingoistic' noses into the breach of war. The same with immigration!

Today, on the contentious immigration front, Americans allow thousands of employers to employ illegal aliens at a cost of jobs, taxes, welfare and loss of the rule of law. While 15 million Americans suffer unemployment, about 10 million illegal aliens enjoy employment. Additionally, the U.S. Congress pumps another 1.1 million new immigrants into the country along with green card holders every year. That's over 200,000 every 30 days!

While the past four presidents did nothing to stop employers of illegal aliens, neither did U.S. citizens stand up to vote anyone that would enforce America's immigration laws. Thus far, mass immigration continues to displace Americans not only out of jobs, but out of their language, culture and financial stability. The USA stands $14 trillion in debt...MORE...LINK -------------------------

Yes, its greedy "conservative" employers seeking to drive down the price of wages and labor, and to grow the American consumer market, behind the allowance of much of the illegal immigration. But it's also glabalist-pimping, left-liberal neo-Marxists pushing this supposedly "humanist" ideological "diversity" and "multicultural" agenda, who in truth are tools of the super-wealthy limousine liberal set comprised of banksters, financial sector cretins, lawyers, and other cosmopolitan liberal elites who also want to feather their own nests by selling out the country.

Short hand for the lot of them is the characterization of "neoliberal/neocon." And our political and economic problems will never be solved until they're rooted from the political spectrum.